The present invention relates to textile yarn creels for supporting a plurality of yarn packages for feeding yarn therefrom to a textile knitting machine or like textile apparatus.
Textile yarn creels of a wide variety of differing constructions and particular uses are widely known and employed throughout the textile industry for storing and supplying yarns to various types of textile machines. Typically, conventional creels basically include an upright, floor-standing, longitudinal framework from which extend plural elements for supporting a plurality of yarn packages for yarn off-winding therefrom. The yarn packages may take the form of cones, tubes, bobbins or the like about which an endless length of yarn is wound. The package supporting elements usually are simple pins or rods arranged in linear horizontal rows and vertical columns outwardly-extending from the upright framework to facilitate the provision of a wall-like bank of the plural yarn packages to be supported.
Most modern yarn-handling or fabric-producing textile machinery are adapted to simultaneously utilize as many as several hundred different yarns. Furthermore, as the United States textile industry struggles to retain or regain its competitiveness with low cost foreign manufactured goods, much effort has been devoted to improving the efficiency of floor space utilization in manufacturing operations. As a result, the trend in recent years in textile machinery design has been toward reducing the overall dimensions of machines and/or increasing the yarn usage capabilities of machines, so as to improve production per unit space. As just one example, state-of-the-art circular knitting machines are presently available of substantially the same overall dimensions as comparable circular knitting machines manufactured and sold 15-20 years ago, but are capable of feeding and knitting with up to or more than twice as many yarns as such older machines.
While such improvements in manufacturing machinery provide improved production efficiency, new problems result which can negate any cost savings realized. First, the greater capability of conventional machines for yarn usage creates a requirement for correspondingly increased space usage for yarn supply and storage, e.g. yarn creels. Conventional creels of the above-described general type are constructed to a fixed size and fixed package storage capacity. Accordingly, as yarn requirements increase, additional creel units requiring additional floor space must be utilized, and, conversely, if any creel is utilized at less than its full capacity, wasted space results. Such yarn storage problems are compounded by the fact that most conventional creels provide for the storage of yarn packages in pairs, one package to be initially used for yarn feeding and the other package to be stored in tandem with the first package for replacement thereof when the yarn of the first package is fully spent.
Increased yarn usage and fabric production per unit space additionally creates a corresponding increase in the production of lint and similar fibrous debris and waste. As is recognized by persons skilled in the art, lint accumulation on machinery can restrict or entirely prevent proper operation of machine mechanisms, cause machine shut-down and produce defective goods, as well as numerous other problems. Additionally, airborne lint poses a significant health hazard to works. Accordingly, there exists the increased necessity with the use of more efficient conventional textile machinery for periodic cleaning of the machinery, the floor space it occupies, and the surrounding air in order to minimize lint accumulation.
In contrast, the present invention provides a textile yarn creel of a compact circular construction uniquely and particularly adapted for permitting the selected increase or decrease of the package storage capacity of the creel without increasing the overall floor space it occupies. Additionally, the creel includes a special arrangement for preventing lint accumulation.